Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Why Peace Things?
Peace Things Headquarters I created PeaceThings to give myself and others a "visual voice" for peace every day. On March 20, 2003 I had to face the facts: All of my letter-writing and speaking up, voting, supporting the UN, donating, signing petitions, meditating and candle-lighting had been in vain. I was disheartened, but I wasn't giving up. I suddenly needed a peace flag to display next to the Stars & Stripes in front of my house. I needed shirts and buttons to wear every day. I had to make ongoing non-political statements for peace in order to shed these feelings of powerlessness and grief. With my daughter in the military, I needed to create a way to support worldwide peace initiatives and donate to educational and humanitarian agencies. In a frenzy, I got flags and tee-shirts printed up and created the PeaceThings website. Then I went into the world of e-commerce, creating the store and Peace stuff to sell. To make a long story short, I designed, bought, and made all of this stuff, and now I have to sell it all in order to pay for it and PeaceThings' operations and charitable contributions.
My daughter was in Afghanistan when we attacked Iraq. Since then she spent a year in Honduras keeping the world safe for cheap fruit, coffee and sweatshop goods... It is amazing what our government does to support this nasty economy of over consumption. Her latest orders send her to Fort Hood, Texas, and then next summer to Iraq for a year. Things can change between now and next summer. Being the parent of a soldier makes practicing the Power of Now a necessity.
